And now, ten-years-old, she knows,
staring deep into the chaotic orchestra humming

inside this woman’s torso, the slow
moo of flies and bees as they feast, the slick

slaps of the tongues kissing the wounds,
as if bidding farewell to the dead.

——————————*

Abuela told the police officers everything
she knew:

————————We were dropping by
to buy milk for cheese and quesadillas.

My daughter was the first to notice
the smell.

——————We found don Ricardo
moaning in the barn. Los Gutierrez did it.

He didn’t give their sons jobs,——————————————so they slaughtered

his family in vengeance, left him for dead———two bullets in the chest.

———————————————He told me
to tell Felipe. I told him Felipe was hungover.

No one else knows where in Chaletenango
to find my family, he said.

—————————-Those were his final words.

——————————*

Maybe that was the reason I would blackout,
Mama tells me, her hammock———————————————-swinging low
as a chariot. At her worst, she would lose
entire days—————doing nothing, staring at what
she doesn’t remember.———————————–I saw so muchduring the war, mijo. Jovencitas raped

while I hid up a tree.————————————Men gutted while I hid—————————————————————in the bushes.

But, of course, Mama didn’t begin to blackout
until decades later, after Papi cheated on her.

¿Isn’t it awful what griefs the soul chooses
to survive? There are griefs like packs of wolves

where your soul outruns your terror. The way
the war seemed to make Mama invincible.

Fuck a mountain. Her faith could move a border,
could scrub a white woman’s floor

until she could bring her brother and sisters
with her. There are griefs like snakes

Willy Palomo is the son of two immigrants from El Salvador. His poems and book reviews can be found in the pages of Vinyl, Waxwing, Muzzle, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and more. For more info, visit www.palomopoemas.com.